Gold gourami sexing

[cabezon]

I have a question, heres the set-up: I bought a male and female Gold Gourami. now the boy has grown up a bit but the girl has not.

do females normally stay smaller? or could it be the stress caused by the boy? he chases her a lot

 

[Devilishturtles]

In general, females are usually larger and with less color. Boys are usually smaller but with more brilliant/darker color. This obviouslly isn't the case in your tank, so what about the color of the two? Any difference?

 

[cabezon]

whoah, wait a sec. I put a pinch of food in the tank, and now that I look, I think the smaller one is more colored. so the female is being aggressive to the male?

 

[Devilishturtles]

Okay, I stand corrected. With gouramis, color and size isn't a definite and you mainly look at the dorsal fin (the fin on top).

http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/13/

So in this link you can see the female on top has a rounded dorsal fin while the bottom picture shows a more pointed dorsal fin.

 

[theotheragentm]

I never thought to sex my Gouramis, but here they are in the same picture. Maybe this is an indication of pointed versus rounded?

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=95909

 

[Devilishturtles]

Thanks theotheragentm! That's exactly it. The rounded is the female, the pointed is the male.

 

[theotheragentm]

I think mine may be mating now. They hide out behind the statues and hover over each other all the time.

 

[cabezon]

OK, but my real question is whether the female is healthy? by the fins, the male is about 2" and the female only an 1". She is not much bigger than when i bought her. The only time I see her is when he is chasing her, and he noses into her when she eats. I am wondering if i should take her out for a while.

She's in a 10 gal. and the only other choice is a 5 hex with 4 tetras, or the 55 gal, with 2 blue gouramis (hiders) 2 danios, two angels, and two green severums (tiny). the flame gourami I bought at the same time as the golds died after two months in the 55.

 

[cabezon]

I finally decided to move the male gold to the 55 gal. he is the same size as the other gouramis and everyone seems to be doing well.

the female and the rest of the 10 gal seem to be happy to be free. the female is swimming all around instead of hiding, the tetras are swimming around, even the loach is out and about. I feel bad I waited so long to move the mean guy.

 

[GouramiFanatic]

Are you planning on keeping the Gold Gourami in the 10 gallon long term? I ask because that's far to small for a Gold Gourami to live in long term. As a temporary fix, it shouldn't be a major issue, but I would detinitely look into moving her into a bigger tank as soon as you can. She should be kept in at least a 20 gallon (and I personally think that's a little to small as well).